California’s Democratic leaders announced a “landmark deal” Monday to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. Yet it may be overshadowed by another milestone from the same day. Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, announced that his “Landmark Retirement Security Program” is moving to the next step in the legislative process.
The minimum-wage boost surely will stifle the economy and exacerbate teen unemployment, but it could at least theoretically be undone. The quickly advancing new retirement program — similar to other programs floated in other states — means creating another state-run boondoggle that probably will never go away.
In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a measure that creates the groundwork for the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Plan — a new retirement-savings system for 6.8 million private-sector workers not offered such benefits by their employers. Legislation still is needed to put the specifics into place. Treasurer John Chiang said California is “set to herald in the most significant change to retirement savings since Social Security was enacted as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.” Be very afraid.
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